Trying to catch up on my backlog, and I swear I would get through it if I would just stop buying more miniatures…
But we all know that isn’t happening, so I’m just going to put my nose to the grindstone and hope to at least make a dent!
I started the FantasticFour figures from CMON’s Marvel Zombies version of Zombicide back in the spring of 2024, and it’s been slow progress, as shaky health and other, far more distracting miniatures jockey for favor with my attention span.
The Human Torch is next off the list, I’m not as happy with this outcome as I would like to be, fire is just tricky when it’s the whole damned figure. Still, it works, and I’m sure I’ll stop being as critical of it when I get more distance from the monotony of painting it.
He does look pretty sweet posed with the Thing, though! I’m not sure if it’s still canon with the Fantastic Four, but it was revealed in the early 2000’s that Ben’s nemesis, the Yancy Street Gang, was Johnny Storm just pulling pranks the whole time. I hope in my heart of hearts that is still the case!
I picked up a long-dormant project over the summer, when my now scattered game group decided to get together for a weekend of Age of Sigmar‘s pretty awesome Spearhead supplement. I had the better part of a Kruleboyz Spearhead already finished, so it was time to get the rest done, which I’ll share in a separate post.
Long story short, we had a blast. My health wasn’t the best, but I still managed to get a game in with my friend Jeff, and we both had an excellent time!
This lead to all of us deciding to work on a Path to Glory league together, with a full campaign and stories to tell about our armies. Our first task is going to be to flesh out those Spearheads to 1,000 points, and for that to work, we’re going to be needing bosses! Or at least I will. Sure, I could use the Spearhead boss, he’s cool enough, but this project deserves something custom!
That’s where Grakkskull, da’ King of Crows comes in! I had this amazing Warhammer Underworlds Kruleboy leader, and after figuring out how to get more crows on the figure Grakkskull was born!
First step was coming up with some extras to make him EXTRA. I had just finished putting some Kroot together, so I had some extra meat bits and hooks. Perfect. Also, that cage on this dude’s head gave me some ideas, and I found a crow from my Cursed City box set that set more ideas in motion. Also, that whip needs to be swapped out with something stabbier, so a cleaver from a Khorn jerk should come in handy!
The crow on the trident has a key in its beak, which is one of the motivations behind Grakkskull’s madness. He just wants to find that key and unlock the stupid cage on his head! In the meantime, he had a scare shield welded to the cage so that the gods couldn’t see his schemes and thwart him.
Paint basics have been laid in, next up is detailing and basing! Then his stabgrot, Bootlick, will be joining the mob! Stay tuned for more!
I’ve been trying to shake my latest bout of Tiny Miniature Madness, but it’s just not happening. On top of my Freakishly Small Fantasy Fever and Marvel Micro-Mini Mayhem, I’ve developed a horrible case of Spaaaaaace Maaaaaaadness. Yes, it’s time for tiny little spacemans.
Dammit. REALLY TINY SPACEMANS. These first two figs are (I think) from Khurasan Miniatures, and I really dig them a lot. I wish I had put them on smaller washers in hindsight, but live and learn, I guess.
15mm is great because there’s still a bunch of detail, but they take up a lot less space. This also means that a game of Stargrave or Five Parsecs from Home can be played on a 1′ x 1′ or 2′ x 2′ board pretty easily, and the terrain is pretty easy to make. Hell, it’s even pretty inexpensive to have printed if you don’t have your own printer!
The two figures on the right are scaled-down STL files I had printed up, but they are really fragile compared to the pewter figs on the left. I’m not sure if I’ll have more printed up, or just keep plowing on with the pewter minis. At about a buck a pop, it’s hard to justify the hassle of scaling the larger figures down and dealing with the resin!
This doesn’t mean I’m done with larger scale skirmish games by any means, though! I’ve been experimenting with Infinity miniatures for my other space games, and that’s just too cool a site to just walk away from!
Time for an update on my Moonstone back log, and perhaps the beginning of a fresh strategy to get these done!
In the past, I’ve just put together whatever I had in front of me, and set out painting that backlog without any real strategy. That has led me to feeling like I’ll never finish any of these collections, since there’s simply so many figures, and I’m doing a terrible job of not buying more!
So, I’ll be taking them on by boxed set, and since the last Moonstone mini I finished was the Creep from the Masquerade box, I figured I would follow up with Duchess, and eventually Claudia Duvel. That should at least help me feel like I’m making some progress as I check off each box completed!
The Duchess is a really fun mini, and challenged me to try some new approaches to color. I wanted to go super bright on everything, but she’s also pretty sinister, so I needed to go bright and sinister, which I’m hoping I pulled off!
Here she is with Creep, looking like they’re ready to poison some canape at the next Grand Ball! Claudia is already on the paint table, so I should have her up soon!
The Masquerade Troop box is available online directly here, but you could be a real champ and order it from your local game store!
More from the lab from the 15mm Fantasy project! I’ve been feeling a bit green lately, so I figured I would mark the occasion with a little greenskin action. And when I say little, I mean really little…
As I mentioned in a previous post, 15mm has become my Goldilocks scale for miniatures. Stuff just prints up lovely, and there’s a ton of options out there from some independent miniature companies.
This particular Green Menace started out as a subscription set of STL files I got from Forest Dragon Miniatures, but my doctor says I need to avoid printing with resin, so I have been ordering the rest of the army from a company on Etsy that does a pretty nice job!
The first finished fig is an Orc Warboss on a Wyvern, and I seriously love this mini! There’s a print defect on the wing, but he’s pretty small and it’s hardly noticeable:
I also finished up a small group of grunts, which were mounted to #10 washers for bases. Those work out to about 1/2″ wide, which allows a pretty solid balance between functionality and display needs. I originally had 3/4″ washers on there, but that made the miniatures hard to place on terrain!
I plan on using these guys for skirmish games, and there’s a travel board in the works that will have some pretty sweet terrain packed into it! More to come soon! (pay no attention to the ratboi in the basement!)
I’ve been painting up Malifaux models for over a decade now, and honestly, I couldn’t quit this range of miniatures if I tried. The lore is hands-down the best out there (for my sensibilities), and the models are incredible, even if you lose years of sanity every time you build one. My latest project has been putting together a Leveticus crew. He’s a right bastard, so I’ll be saving him for last!
Leveticus uses the Amalgam keyword, so he has access to a pretty wild assortment of gribbly monsters and abominations. Necropunks are part of that list, and I’m really happy that they’ve had a refresh since the original sculpts… They weren’t terrible, by any means, just not what I was looking for in a Weird West mini!
Not 100% sure these are the originals, but they’re pretty damned close!
The new Necropunks came out for 2nd edition, and maintain the gross level pretty well. Here’s punk #1:
I went with a greenish pallor on the skin, he is a dead guy, after all. Love the gear on his back, too! Such a grotesque fella!
Punk 2 has some Go-Go Gadget arms action going down, which is probably good, he’s a little guy, after all. Those extendo-arms probably come in handy when he bellies up to the bar at the saloon!
Punk 3 reminds me of a cool old monk, but dead, and toting a trusty metal pole instead of a staff. Really cool legs on this dude, too!
I have a problem. It’s not quite all consuming, yet… but I am finding myself more and more drawn to a philosophical conundrum that I’m afraid will never resolve itself in my mind.
That conundrum? I want to find my “Goldilocks” scale in miniature wargames. I am primarily a painter, and will more likely than not drop a smoke bomb and disappear into the ether if confronted with an actual game. So, the age-old adage that smaller (than GW) scaled minis won’t work for me doesn’t quite apply. I really don’t mind if most of the people I hang out with in the hobby sphere only game in Heroic 28mm scale, since I hardly play games in the first place!
Lately, the thought of smaller scale miniatures has been really appealing to me. They take up a lot less space, and there are plenty of options out there to fill out just about any genre for a collection. Sure, I can’t really put together an Age of Sigmar list from most of the options out there, but I can do plenty of fantasy stuff!
Now, the biggest question ends up being which scale works for me? With that in mind, I worked on four dwarf minis in different scales:
From left to right we have a 10mm, 15mm, and 20mm Dwarf from Forest Dragon Miniatures. The stalwart chap on the right is a standard GW Beardie Boy, which I have a metric butt-load of at the moment.
The classic Heroic 28s look great, have tons of detail, and are a lot of fun to paint. But they DO take up a bit of space, and they take some time to paint up, especially if you’re putting together regiment sized collections of figs.
20mm minis had me pretty pumped up for about a week, since they translate to roughly 72nd scale in models there are a lot of cool scenery and terrain options, just not much for fantasy. They also paint up a bit faster than the 28mm figs, but not so much faster that they have a clear advantage. Also, while taking up less room than the GW figs, it’s not that much less room!
Now, I have to be really honest right now. I’m already a sucker for 15mm, which you can see above. They’re small enough that they don’t take up much space, terrain is also pretty small, but they’re still big enough that they have a good amount of detail! Plus, they paint up pretty quickly because of the size. Downsides are that they are small enough that I’m concerned about eye strain, but at least I’ll go blind doing something constuctive!
the less said about 10mm the better, this scale broke my brain. Cool as hell to see put together in a battalion, but at 55 my eyes and hands just aren’t up to that challenge. I might come back to it later, because it’s really tempting from a storage perspective, but I did not enjoy the experience one bit!
My personal favorite after all of this comes down to 15mm! There’s a ton of options available, and I just love how a group of troops looks massed together. This group of Dwarf hunters would work well for just about any skirmish game, and I’ll be back in a bit with some tips on how to put together a group for rank and flank games!
What’s your favorite scale to work with? Let me know in the comments!
Sadly, I knew I was pretty much doomed the second I laid eyes on my fist Moonstone miniature a few years back. There is a irreverent streak that runs about a mile wide in the sculpts, and everything about them just screams for me to paint them. Paint them ALL.
Creep isn’t the first Moonstone mini that I painted, but he’ll be the first I’m posting here. He’s part of the Human Dominion range, and exudes a really fun menace. I can’t wait to paint more, hahaha!
Moonstone minis are made of a fine cast resin, and hold detail pretty well. There is a fare amount of flash on some models, and others hardly any, which I find typical of resin models. It’s easy to lose track of the details when painting, especially when your eyes are starting to fail like mine are. I found keeping the Moonstone website open to the mini I’m painting helps make sure I’m not missing something!
I printed the mushrooms on my Saturn, and went with some bold fluorescents on them to bring out the bright colors on the mini. It’s a fantasy world, it’s okay to go big and bright!
Next up for my Moonstone collection will be Doug the Flatulent, who is a farting pug with a goblin on his back. Yes, it’s that amazing!
Still playing catch-up on the never-ending mass of miniatures from the Marvel Zombies Zombicide game from CMON! Today it’s all about Drax. Or Mr. Destroyer, if you’re feeling fancy.
I’m pretty consistently surprised with the quality of these figures from CMON, considering the first Zombicide minis I painted were not the best of experiences!
Also, I LOVE that these miniatures have base details already. That’s a really great addition that goes a long way towards selling the mood of the game!
I still haven’t played a game of Zombicide, but it could happen. Regardless, I’m happy to have these around for any super-hero action that might come along!
I’m an absolute dork for the stupid-ass villains that plague Spider-Man’s life. The dumber, the better. It’s a real testament to the design genius of the old Marvel art stable that these guys still resonate with me half a century after I discovered them as a kid!
Sandman will be kicking off my collection of Spider foes from the Marvel Zombies Zombicide game from CMON. I’m really digging the added sand work on the base, he was a lot of fun to paint!
Next up on the Spider-foes docket is the Scorpion!
Grimmleigh's Lab 